“One night or two nights?” – “One” – “ok, thanks”. 15 minutes later, kids mingling on the playground … “could we maybe still make it two?” That was last night. We did not regret it. 7 days of travel with 7 different camp spots is taxing in a way. Taking a rest day takes the stress out of everything.
I will try to keep this short and sweet. The day was near perfect. Both kids got plenty of opportunity to engage and play with others. Number 3 made me really proud with the amount of English he practices with other kids and adults. His English has improved so much already.
jump into action every time a horse walked by (this is 2m from the tent)
We had two solid meals and a sweet breakfast treat to boot (I had the presence of mind to grab croissants at our last minute Lidl shopping). Scrambled eggs for lunch and mashed potatoes and veggie nuggets for dinner. Minor aside: There is this great line of plant based “protein” foods at our local organic supermarket. We had the “non-meat-balls” before and the nuggets for tonight. They come as a powder, to be soaked in water and fried up and they both taste excellent. More vegetarian food should be this good. As a bonus, they last forever and pack very neatly and only need water to prepare, so a great camping food all around.
Only one event broke the stride a bit: Puru Hiko’s 12v batterie ran flat one again at some point in the afternoon. What a stupid engineering oversight (DC-DC converter only triggers when the “ignition” is on). But this time, I come prepared. Bought a tiny power bank / jump start battery kit and coaxed him back to life without an embarressing round of the camp looking for a jump start from a stinker.
That was really it. Great conversations with some of our lovely neighbours, great play time for the kids and we got to catch up on sleep and chores. All ready to tackle the road again!
both XYs pretty tired – time for cuddles!
the best place in the world to practice benign neglect – mama and papa are hiding
old enough to help as well now!
cooking time is family time
done yourself it always tastes better
jump into action every time a horse walked by (this is 2m from the tent)
We took a rest day at Agriturismo Alba. After two cities in a row, we needed a bit of a breather for the next two cities ahead of us. With this in mind, we relaxed for a day.
She’s going to be a professional climber someday
Number 3 really wanted to spend some time at the playground and the Agent tagged joyfully along. We were the only ones on the playground this morning. Bringing our sand toys with us was enough to keep both of them busy for quite a while. The Agent loved the slide though and in no time started climbing up the ladder all by herself.
Doing laundry was overdue so we put on the washing. Unfortunately, the machine was broken somehow and all our clothes were dripping wet when we took them out. The sky was overcast for most of the day, so it would take forever for them to dry.
We had a slow morning with some blogging and then a nap. Well, the kids had a nap as they alternated their time asleep: The Agent started and sleep through 1 ½ episodes of Benjamin Blümchen (audio play for kids about the adventures of an elephant who can talk) which is when Number 3 fell asleep and the Agent was wide awake again. Oh well. No sleep for tired mamas. 🙂
Like this, the madness even looks pretty
When nap time was over, Flo urged us to jump into the lovely pool. I hadn’t even seen it by this point. The sun had come out though so I was persuaded.
The pool was immaculate, blue and surrounded by a lovely manicured green lawn. I got into the water fist, which was up to about my waist right next to the ladder. That was as deep as I would go in today, I decided, as the water was really quite cold. The Agent in her pushy manner nearly threw herself in before she realized how cold the water was and refused to be put into it at all. Her screaming quickly convinced me not to try again. So we got out, changed into something dry (or baby-naked in the Agent’s case) and watched Flo and Number 3 splash around until Number 3’s lips turned blue about 10 minutes in.
The pool excursion ended, a little earlier than expected, with a lovely hot shower. Flo even improvised delicious dinner with the asparagus tips we’d bought two days ago and the potatoes we’d carried since we left home. XD
The Agent of Entropy was in A LOT of pain because her molars and a few bonus incisors are breaking through at the same time. We prepped her a little with pain relief before bringing her to bed in the hope that we might get a quiet night as another gaming session was scheduled. Indeed, we had a quiet, kids-free evening and when we went into the tent later on both kids had crawled towards the middle of the tent and were cuddling. Sometimes, the little ones just melt your heart.
Early morning – these two are just two handful!
She’s going to be a professional climber someday
Almost like Benjamin Blümchen
Well, you gotta put that wet laundry SOMEWHERE
A regular lunchtime with the kids
One-handed spreading butter on my bread…trying to contain the Agent of Entropy
The Agent in her element. What the … ?
Camping at Agriturismo Alba
Like this, the madness even looks pretty
Fluffy chickens at Agriturismo Alba
“Where’s that swimming pool?!”
Yay nah – I pass. Kids are excited though
Reading books with the Agent – she took a liking to the depiction of kangaroos
Since we left home with only a couple of days notice, we keep on deciding on our route while we go. We’d probably do the same if we’d had more time, to be honest, but it still feels a little more ad hoc this time.
REFRESHING!
Our morning was lovely. We had fresh bread rolls from the campground. Number 3 finished a whole one with yummy cherry jam we had bought in Piuro on our first day in Italy. Our intial plan said to only say here at Punta D’Oro for one night, but we really wanted to spend a day here so it was nonchalantly abandoned. Looking at maps and places to go we realized we weren’t actually that keen to camp at Lake Garda next. Maybe we might be a little lake-d out after another day here at lago d’Iseo. So, we decided to stay here and enjoy what we have, head a little south tomorrow to be close to Parma which we want to see on Wednesday, do a little tour of the cities we still want to see and then loop back to Lake Garda on our way out of Italy. We’ll see how much of this plan survives in the future but for now this looks good.
Clouds gathered in different formations all day
And it gave us a whole day at Punta D’Oro to relax. Number 3 wanted to go swimming but when we tried in the late morning, the water was too cold for him and the Agent of Entropy. We had a lovely midday nap after our warm shower, took advantage of the coffee place on the campground and (mostly Flo) chatted up our neighbours on the campsite. Lots of people were interested in the EV or our roof tent plus our immediate neighbours were Germans on parental leave as well.
The day ended for Flo and me when the kids were in bed and we had a last espresso and some cookies sitting on the retaining wall looking out over the lake.
I tried to make some tea … the Agent was scheming
she was, to put it mildly, not convinced
Safely back on dry land … for now
Ok, you can dunk me in … but only in full leech mode!
all in, but Number 3 took some more convincing
Papa needs to demonstrate its safe … after som fussing about
wohoo … now we are all in
REFRESHING!
What’cha got there? Gimmeee
Look at the picture … who took the shot? He is getting much better!
We call every day where we don’t move camp a rest day on our trips. Most of them end up being everything but. So if you imagine a quiet afternoon with a good book on the beach … not quite us. We move at a brisk pace, especially for a family of four. So we always have 5 more things to do on a rest day, because you know: We got time, right? That is on top of everything that made us stay in the first place.
Both kids enjoyed having the place to themselves
I tried to be smart though and venture a bit into multitasking. So after our breakfast, we packed a few essentials and moved to the lakeshore. I was able to finish up the two blog posts in our back-log while Number 3 (and, to the extent that we let her, the Agent, too) enjoyed the lake. We were the first ones out and had the lake all to ourselves. Small mistakes were made, but overall this was a great success. In hindsight, we just should have told Number 3 to take off his clothes all at once rather than waiting for him to get first his pants and then the undies wet. He had a blast, though, and even made new friends with the 5 and 8 year olds kids of the campers two lots down from us.
This is why we went on this trip. We get to spend so much time with our little ones – who are ever so slowly turning into remarkable little characters. Many times a day, I get this flush of emotion when realising just how much I love them and how blessed we are to get to knowing them.
A sit-on toy digger…how precious
We somehow managed to squeeze another load of washing into our lunchtime window, although naptime was a bit of a challenge, probably because of the heat. Oh, and Number 3’s digger addictions. There was a sit-on toy digger on the camp’s playground and he found it. Getting him off that playground took a serious bit of convincing.
So naptime dragged on a bit, organically transitioned into coffee time – all the while, promises about things we can do started piling up for Number 3. For the first time on this trip, we decided to split up. I am not much of a water nut, so Nina and the big brother decided to go for another (real) swim, while I took the Agent of Entropy out for a shopping run. I had added “cooking risotto from scratch” to get rid of our remaining fresh zucchini to the long list of to-dos for the day. Oh, and it was finally time for ice in our icebox – the butter demanded so, or at least that was my excuse.
Little airplane
A brief stroll along the lake later, it was now 4.50 pm, we all joined up again. Number 3 had turned slightly blue from an hour in the water while I was a bit hot from my walk in the sun. We equalized things by a minute or two of cuddle time 😀
I got to work on the risotto – and it was around that time that things turned south a bit. Our hero up to this point lied to his Mum about me having approved it and walked away from his sous-chef duties to play with the damn digger again, all on his own. When dinner was ready, tantrum ensued and he outright refused to join in the meal. Slightly soured by that turn of events, I maybe were not the most patient dad at bed time – and it had maybe 35°C in the tent – so that took almost exactly until it was time for us to hop in the car, start up discord and play our regular Friday night game.
Rest day, eh?
Side note:
– to avoid another disappointing take off, I religiously forced the car into “drive” mode every few hours to force it to charge the 12v battery. That works fine while it is charging the main or when the charger is disconnected, but leads to weird behaviour when the main is at 100% but the charger not disconnected. It seems like some software optimisation is still required. We’ll find out if all that at least had the desired effect, tomorrow –
A good morning starts with an encounter with a garbage truck 🙂
First, sitting by the lake was fine
Both kids enjoyed having the place to themselves
Second, feet went in and Number 3’s pants got wet
He continued without pants as he needed to throw small pebbles into the lake
Then, his sleeves were wet and needed to come up
Happy as can be
Blogging is serious business, you people!
A big rock doubling as a steering wheel
Number 3 dropped it into the lake (on purpose) and got splashed. This is his “oops but so worth it” face XD
More splishing and splashing
Her second nickname is “mountain goat”
Only a couple of toes left on the ground
Number 3 made friends with other kids
Chasing ducks
Watching the escaping duckies with dad and Number 3 approaching in the distance
A sit-on toy digger…how precious
Found some bugs!
“Mama, wait, I can climb these, too!”
On the playground, things for her age are not interesting
Rather, she’d imitate her brother
“Oooh, this is fun, too!”
So proud when she got there
Happy Agent
On the way to the grocery store
Found it!
The trip was long enough to make the Agent fall asleep
After yesterday’s long drive to get to Italy, it was officially our rest day today. Unfortunately, the kids don’t understand the concept of “sleeping in” and thus, we were awake way too early again.
It was a bit chilly when we got up but breakfast is a good way to cheer everybody up. Afterwards we just went to explore our immediate surroundings: The waterfall of Acquafraggia first of all. It is a five minute walk from our campground and we can see it from here through the trees. On the way there, we found a cool place with access to the river where Number 3 put his feet in already. He was generally amazed by the rapid flowing water.
The waterfall itself was loud and there was a lot of spray so Number 3 stayed back a little, while both Flo and I got ourselves a little refreshment when we got close. 🙂 The Agent of Entropy had no choice but to go with Flo but since she didn’t complain it couldn’t have been too bad.
With our spirits high and the temperature rising to a lovely 21 degrees, we started to walk to the next village over to see if we could find a little restaurant for lunch and a shop to buy some groceries. Though the walk was basically along the main road but on a pedestrian footpath, we saw lots of animals. The lizards especially fascinated Number 3. There was also a little chicken hut where we spent about 15 minutes trying to convince Number 3 to keep on moving.
The village of Prosto di Piuro is rather small. We still found the artisan bakery/cookie shop for me to buy some fruit bread, cookies, jam and a bottle of red wine in.
To be honest, Flo and I didn’t know how travelling would be during the pandemic and if we’d feel unsafe. We are really impressed with Italy at the moment as everybody seems to be “no nonsense” about the rules. EVERYBODY wears a mask. And correctly, too! Not just covering mouths or such silly business as I often see in Frankfurt. Everybody keeps their distance if possible and they just get on with it!
Shopping was a pleasure even if I had to stretch my almost non-existing Italian. We didn’t find a restaurant in our price range that was open but we found the little supermarket to buy some groceries.
We hurried a little on the way back as it was time for lunch and everybody was hungry. That turned out to be a bit of a drag for Number 3. Even so, he refused to have a midday nap after lunch. Chilling on the campground in the afternoon was an exercise for our patience. Only when Number 3 observed the guy on the lawnmower and started role playing it did things improve again.
By dinner time the Agent of Entropy was causing havoc while Number 3 redeemed himself by being a superb sous-chef.
Our last real day in France – and last rest day before we shift gears one more time. Oh, and also 75th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. Glad we did not take that route 😉 – security procedures must be a nightmare. While the world leaders played politics with remembrance, we had much smaller goals for the day.
with this view, we did not mind much
Actually, apart from taking a final breather, there was really only one thing: To organise bread for lunch or dinner. Everything else would fall into place. So I brushed up my limited French to work on the owners and find out how we could get some bread without taking the car. My idea was to go on a very small hike to a restored old mill and bakery nearby, but that one it turned out only opens twice a month. The 45 minute walk into the next village seemed a bit much, so I tried for bicycles instead. Once I finally had communicated the reasoning for all this questing, I got the offer to get some bread from the lady of the house and save me the trouble. Fine by us!
Weather is
still a mixed bag, but for most of the day it stayed dry, even sunny at times.
It still took until the afternoon to get comfortably warm outside. So much so
in fact that my winter coat that I took as a last minute addition got dusted
off once more by Nina (who from there on out had a big grin on her face and
said something about walking around in a blanket …).
That was
it, really. By the afternoon, we had the campground almost to ourselves. Once the
lawn mowing and hedge trimming had stopped, we got to fully soak in the tranquil
and beautiful place all around us. The day slipped by and we soaked in the last
bit of sunshine and afternoon warmth with another cup of tea / coffee.
Oh yeah – and I got a sunburn. Ridiculous, the rainiest day in a long time, but that’s what we whiteys get for skipping the sunscreen.
everything sagging a bit, but overall ..
… camp took the rain well.
Number 3 played for an exceptinally long time by himself …
To think that one minute earlier or later, we would have driven off again for another campsite. What were we thinking? A proper, do (almost) nothing rest day was the least we could do to appreciate the spectacular site.
This time
we were armed with at least a little foresight and had restocked our pantry
with fresh goods. Therefore lunch was an old summertime favourite: Potatoes
with Tzatziki. I made it from memory, but I must have nailed it the way the
rest of my family devoured it 😉
With that
much time, there were, of course, some chores, but only the washing was much
bother. We even had convenient washing lines already set up in the form of the
supports for the vines all around us. We also got back up to date with the
blog.
… and enjoy the view from bed
The day
just flowed – with perfect temperatures and our prime spot on our terrace
shaded by the huge awning for our Skycamp. If there were highlights, it would
be the set of lovely encounters we had in the afternoon. We went up for drinks
(and to sample the vino verde from this very vineyard) and as is sort of custom
on these Dutch run sites had a good chat with first the owner and later with
other guests. Number 3 got a good amount of dog training in with Moos and Monte,
the two excellently trained dogs of the house. We learned a bit about the “green
wine”, which is made from unripe or green grapes and reminded me a lot of Weißweinschorle.
A dry white with a bit of sparkle. Just that here the carbon dioxide came not
from sparkling water added but from natural fermentation – a bit like flat bubbly.
We also got
to talk a bit to Tom – probably one of the top 5 nicest Australian I have met
so far (dear Tom, be in a good mood when you read some of our Australia blogs).
Since I still had a good half bottle of vino verde to finish, I invited him and
his German partner back to our tent after Number 3 was put to bed. They came
down, his partner Celine joining Tom. We had a good long chat, only slightly
marred by Number 3 waking up around 10 pm and insisting on hanging out with us
until we came to bed. He was pretty good when he was out, so we gave it a try.
If he is anything like me, there will come the day when it will be pointless
trying to put him to bed when company is around anyway.
Late and
tired, but with some satisfaction we went to bed that night, wishing both
Celine and Tom farewell (we were all leaving the next morning). Encounters like
this, meeting what feels like good people (including the lovely owners) is
right at the heart of why I travel. This is how we met so many of those we now
call friends. First and foremost Peter and Leonie. We are really looking forward
to those two in two weeks’ time as well.
Great light early in the morning
reason enough to open the window …
… and enjoy the view from bed
mist lay in the vally below us
I mentioned we did not a lot … oh, and Number 3 has a chair now
Flowers and Ants were the objects of todays study
.. oh, and dogs
not just the camps dogs …
… also the neighbours when they came over …
… to help out work the vinyard (and get distracted)
It is upon
us! The rest day is here! So what event to write about a day with the sole purpose
of relaxing and refuelling? Well, I will
try to keep it brief. It was a lovely day. Of course, with a kid, there might
never be such a thing as a perfect day.
The hair in
today’s soup was a familiar one: Molar number four (for Number 3)! Sleep was a
bit rough and he is just that bit less relaxed and more complain-y. After seeing
how wolfishly jagged the other three turned out to be, it is hard to blame him
for it. Still … the bipolar alternating between crying and joy takes a bit of
the chill out of relaxation.
Wait, what is going …
Don’t get
me wrong, there was plenty of that for all of us. Number 3 walked up and down
maybe 100 stairs or more, while Nina and I did some light research, blogging
and a lot of generally not very much. Oh, yes, and a lot of chook chasing for
Number 3. The three resident hens turned out to be of great entertainment
value.
Lunch was
silky smooth scrambled eggs with caramelized onions. One way I found to prepare
eggs even to my liking. We felt we had a good reason to use up all our eggs in
storage, since we could restock for 10ct a piece straight from the coop 20m from
here.
Oh, we gave
the pool another shot with Number 3 – still too cool for him. He was still
quite the trooper though, taking shock to the nether regions with only very
little screaming. After that, we called it a night with some ice cream and a drink
at the bar. Another Portuguese Liqueur called Beirāo. Again, sweet
enough that Nina liked it a bit.
We said we
would only stay one night. Unfortunately, and at no fault of the campground,
the night was not the most refreshing one. Number 3 cried through the witching
hour. Molars come easy, most of our friends say – apparently, Number 3 begs to
differ.
Everybody a
bit cranky, not in the most efficient of spirits, packing went slowly. It was
also a bit overcast, so the (desperately needed) washing from the night before
took its right time to dry. Instead of literally watching our clothes dry, we
decided to break it up and let the little one explore the camp ground.
tough night, time to explore
First, he
cautiously waved at the young Dutch family I had a good chat with last night.
Then he set his eyes on the big price: The only age appropriate playmate
around. Once again, the camper population is almost exclusively divided between
(mostly Dutch) retirees and young German parents on their parental leave trips.
His playmate was part of the second group.
Jonna, it
turned out, was almost exactly the same age as Number 3 – and almost uncannily
alike in development. In contrast to our grasshopper, this one came with an
elder sibling. So it happed that we first stopped, then chatted and in the end
“occupied” the spot of this German family. The elder sister was called Rahel.
Number 3 took an immediate liking, and she was very good with the little ones.
Or maybe it was her flash red Pucky pushbike that captured his interests.
In a bit of
a playground conversation situation we ended up all on a blanket and in a very
pleasant chat. Pia (Jan took the opportunity of 3 supervising adults to the
same number of kids to socialise himself J) shared a bit of their travel story
so far, and time went by. Decision time came and as the sun came out a bit, it
was just too good a moment and place to be interrupted by departure. So we will
stay another night. With that off our shoulders, things took a turn to the
bright side.
Late night blogging
We moved
the whole cabal over to our camp when the obligatory 12 noon Dutch campground
lawnmower brigade had bugged us long enough. I had a chance to show off our
mobile “cave” to Rahel and we got some tips on what to do with the afternoon.
After a
great lunch finding a creative use for the odd Portuguese cheese I bought the
other day, and a long nap by the sleepers of the clan, we buckled up for a bit
of walking. There was a loop walk following the little river Mira right next to
the camp and through the surrounding hills. 5 km seemed just our thing.
The start
of the track was the best part, following the riverbank for two kilometres. It
was very much our thing, with a few rugged bits and beautiful views of the
valley. We took our good time and had a break half way for some fresh fruit and
a chance for Number 3 to stretch his legs.
All in all
we were out for a bit more than two hours. All the washing was dry now, of
course. A quick bread and spreads dinner and a little romp around our camp gave
us enough time to let the evening fade out with a bit more good company. I
still had most of a bottle of red wine lying about – I needed just a swig for
cooking. So we kind of invited ourselves to Pia, Jan, Rahel and Jonna’s dinner
baring gifts.
It turned into a lovely warm evening sitting and chatting. Dinner was even vegetarian, hence Nina could tuck in for a second meal as well. When we came back to our campsite about half an hour past bed time for the little one, everyone was in a good spirit. It was the right decision to hang around – I think we have learned from our last stop in Spain!
This feels like holiday to us. The weather is just perfect: 26°C and blue skies. We have shade, we have food – and we made some company. The long talked about full on rest day is here.
We got the
blog in order. More importantly, we also spent some time planning the next
steps. We had to look a bit further ahead, since we still have the broken front
clasp of the roof tent, we needed to find a place to receive shipped parts. We
found another great place via rustiek kamperen, which is turning into a bit of
an insider tip to all the other German families on parental leave we meet.
Found a stone!
Speaking of
those: We got to talk to a German family also on their parental leave trip.
Johannes and Maike taking a bit more time for their second boy Kaya. Traveling
with a 3 year and a 5 month old, they definitively mark the “one up” occasion
to our Blue George compact car setup. They travel with an even smaller slightly
older VW Polo – with only the trunk space and a roof box for luggage. Although
with their traditional tent, they definitively scored the jackpot regarding the
spot. A little bit further away from everyone, in between shady trees hugging a
small stream. It looks like an ad for free camping, but with hot showers and
cold beer available within 50m.
In the
afternoon we shared a beer or two, swapped travel stories. We returned to our
camp just in time for a tortilla dinner. Only my second try at a Spanish tortilla,
and with the added difficulty of the camping stove, it came out pretty decent.
Nina and Baby enjoyed it.
And so, our day of sweet little nothing ended with a fine sunset and a final (real cold) non-alcoholic beer after Number 3 went to bed.
good morning campside
Still a weird kind of picky eater: Never enough, but alwas brave. Spanish ham, this time
too much nothing, sleep needed
Everyone in their zone
Found a stone!
Slightly jealous – but the mossies are even more anoying there
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